Owen Smith: San Francisco’s Diego Rivera

I first became aware of artist and illustrator Owen Smith when he began doing cover illustrations for the annual fiction edition of The New Yorker in the mid-90s. Pulpy, film-noirish, with an earthy, almost proletarian sensibility, these were not the staid, bloodless efforts that typically graced the magazine. These were the kind of covers that made me want to pick up the rag and read it.

Owen Smith

Brigid O’Shaughnessy

Not everyone saw that way. According to Smith, a few readers wrote in at first to complain, "This isn’t Playboy magazine. I expect more from The New Yorker." But over the years Smith has illustrated some eighteen covers for the publication—including the winner of the 2007 Cover of the Year from the America Society of Magazine Editors—leaving little doubt about the popularity and acceptance of his work among editors, critics and readers.

I next recognized Smith’s hand in the cover of Maureen Dowd’s provocative 2005 book, Are Men Necessary? Derived from an earlier New Yorker illustration, it shows a sexy redhead in a clingy dress, reading a book in a subway car while a trench-coated, fedora-wearing, 40s private eye type gives her an up from under look. In this case, the illustration made me want to pick up the book … and steal the dust jacket. (No offense to Dowd, whose column I regularly read in The New York Times, but Men way overstates its case.)

But what really got me to stand up and pay attention to Smith’s work was a series of posters he did of characters from Dashiell Hammett’s masterwork The Maltese Falcon. Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for their Art on Market Street Program, the posters were installed in kiosks on Market Street between Van Ness and the Embarcadero, giving pedestrians an eyeful of Smith’s wonderfully evocative interpretations of detective Sam Spade, villains Kasper Gutman (the “Fat Man”) and Wilmer Cook, and that most fatale of all femme fatales, Brigid O’Shaughnessy.

Owen Smith

Cover Illustration for The Big Wake-Up

In 2009, when I heard that Smith, a Bay Area native, had returned from New York and was living in Alameda, I was determined to convince him (and my publisher) that a Smith illustration would be the perfect thing for the cover of my then forthcoming novel, The Big Wake-Up. Authors rarely have much influence over the artwork used for their books—at most a book contract will grant the right to review and provide feedback on the cover design—but by wheedling, cajoling and generally making myself a nuisance to both parties, I was able to get Smith signed up for the job.

The result was an dramatic rendering of two of my characters opening a coffin in a crypt with an eerie glow emanating from within. It makes for a vivid, jump-off-the-shelf cover that’s almost always specially mentioned when the book is reviewed or discussed.

San Francisco residents will soon have an opportunity to view an entire collection of Smith’s artwork up close and personal. As part of the public art program for the new Laguna Honda Hospital, Smith has created a series of murals for the facility. Reminiscent of the work of the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (whose "Allegory of California" graces the stairwell of the City Club in San Francisco) or WPA artist Glen Wessels, who painted the murals located in the lobby of the original Laguna Honda building, Owen’s mosaic murals can be found in the main lobby of the new building and in the residential wings. The lobby mosaics depict the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The residential murals evoke the four classical elements (fire, air, earth and water) and an associated profession. (For example, air is represented by an aviator and falconer.) Each “household” has one mosaic mural, accompanied by relief sculpture also done by Smith.

Photo by Bruce Damonte

Laguna Honda Mural

Unfortunately, while the ribbon cutting ceremony and gala celebration for the new hospital took place in June, I’m told by hospital employees that it’s unlikely the new facility will actually be open until November. Until then, you can browse photos of Smith’s and other Laguna Honda artists’ work on the San Francisco Arts Commission’s image gallery.

And for still more of his work, you can check out Aimee Mann’s CD “The Forgotten Arm,” which garnered a Best Packaging Grammy Award thanks to Smith’s illustration, “Underground Movement,” another series of murals he did for the New York City Subway station at 36th Street in Brooklyn, or any of many illustrations he has done for publications like Sports Illustrated, Time, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, or the Los Angeles Times.